Location: Isle of Wight (that's the little speck at bottom of the UK map)

Device: Bookeen Cybook

Have you replaced all your pbooks/HBbooks?

I have managed to download ebooks versions of most of my personal library and much to my friend's delight, I am seriously considering selling my paperbooks - it seems a bit daft to have a wall full of pbooks when they're all saved electronically too.

My friend is so hopeful that I will do this as she's been eyeing my discworld collection (along with all of the Pern, Valdemar and Robin Hobb books) up for a while, so I know they'll all go to a good home and to someone who respects the good old paperback book!

Have any of you sold your hard copy books once you've replaced them electronically

I dream of being able to stop carrying around boxes and boxes of paper. Pbooks are just not that useful to me - I already rip the words and then lose interest in the paper, so being able to keep the words in case I want to read them again would be very useful. As it is, i often give books away because it's not worth the effort of selling them (a box of second hand books is worth perhaps $20, but the second hand book shops will often only want to buy half of them).

Even if they were, I probably wouldn't replace them because of the cost. Ebooks cost about the same as pbooks right now, and we have two rooms with walls covered in full bookshelves.

I am preferentially buying books as ebooks now rather than pbooks when they are available.

I really like the look and feel of a library, with all the pbooks covering the walls, though they are quite a pain to move. (We've moved twice in the last two years.) Thus I would not be highly motivated to get rid of my pbooks in any case.

I'm with Patricia. I only plan to replace some of my library with electronic copies. Some books I can't find electronically. Some I will replace and dispose of the paper copies, either selling them if they're in good condition or tossing them if not (I have some really funky old paperbacks that I will be thrilled to toss). Some I will replace and keep the paper copies. It's not a one-size-fits-all answer.

Device: eb1150 & is that a nook in her pocket, or she just happy to see you?

Quote:

Originally Posted by MaggieScratch

I'm with Patricia. I only plan to replace some of my library with electronic copies. Some books I can't find electronically. Some I will replace and dispose of the paper copies, either selling them if they're in good condition or tossing them if not (I have some really funky old paperbacks that I will be thrilled to toss). Some I will replace and keep the paper copies. It's not a one-size-fits-all answer.

yes, what they said.

i recently sorted through my bookshelves and gave away about 50 books, most of which i had found as PD texts, some of which i hadn't found but knew i would never re-read. but lots of my books are not available digitally, and there are some which i already have in digital format but will keep the paper anyway because they are nice editions. also, those ones i can lend to friends, which is harder to do with digital texts (until i convince all my friends to buy their own liseuses... ) EDIT : and some do not really lend themselves to replacement by digital editions (yet, at least), such as art books for example.

priority is getting rid of the dusty old cheap paperbacks (probably older than i am, taking up way too much space in my tiny appartment, and very bad for my allergies !). hopefully i will be able to replace ALL of those with digital copies. that would probably liberate almost half the total book-occupied space, and my eyes would surely be less itchy too.

but i don't really see it as an either / or proposition.

Last edited by zelda_pinwheel; 03-03-2008 at 01:31 PM.
Reason: it's a complex question...

Others I have found a new home for at a local (25 miles away) small village library, you know that building where you can borrow pbooks. Boy you would have thought that I was Santa. I must have doubled the SF and Mystery section.

I just hope that sometime in the future I will be able to do this same thing with the ebooks I no longer want. I hope this is not just a dream ….
Mmmm!

I'm slowly replacing my pbooks but the problem is that most require scanning by me and that takes a great deal of time. Fiction I have no problem with replacing, most of it is one time use. But I have shelves full of needlecraft books and magazines (knitting, crocheting, cross stitch, needlepoint, quilting, sewing, etc.) that I would like to greatly reduce and that's what I'm concentrating on with my scanning efforts.

I have dust and mold allergies so old books can make me literally sick.